A few weeks back at Hammerhead I had a good old look at Hysterical Games’ Panzerfauste miniatures. 20th century mechanised warfare with British orc infantry, French gnomes and German dwarves. I loved the figures but did that thing where your logical brain says “you have nearly 200 dwarves unpainted and don’t need another ruleset”. So I didn’t buy any. And it’s been bugging me. And then I saw this. You know what I’m going to do now…

Panzerbar!

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Been meaning to post some pics of painted stuff for a while now but having only been managing a dwarf per week of late – none of them based- there’s very little progress to share. I’m not usually one to crow about finding stuff on eBay at a steal, or being showy generally, however I couldn’t resist today.

Just got back from the Hammerhead show in Newark where we mainly circled the bring and buy tables like buzzards. We failed to play any games, didn’t take any photos and failed to give any hardworking retailers our cash. This has to be the worst show review ever, i know. What we did do was have a great old rummage in boxes of metal and plastic and I have to say a big thank you to Phil who managed to bag me this pair of beauties for fifteen quid for the pair – before I even got to the show. Result!

One Dwarf King’s Council and two Dwarf Bat Riders. A fine car boot indeed.

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I was going to post a reply to a piece on another blog when Google+ decided to not let me post a comment. Spurred on by my frustration at not being able to voice something, I thought I’d post my thoughts here where my regular readers (thank you both) could consider and respond if you were so arsed… Anyways…

There seems to be some hand wringing, brow furrowing and general loss of sleep over whether what some folks play can be considered Oldhammer or not. Really? If ‘oldhammer’ is defined by the spirit in which you play a game, what the hell does it matter?

If you’re playing with figures that you love, be they metal, plastic or bloody paper counters…what does it matter? If you care greatly for the world/milleau that your version of nostalgia is set in (and all our nostalgia’s are different, its just that they all interlap like a Venn diagram – some bits are real to you and you alone) then just strap that setting to your chosen rule set. To fret over the fact that the 2nd or 3rd edition ruleset that the 15 year old version of you knew inside-out but that the 40+ version of you can’t be arsed with gets in the way of your enjoyment… Jettison it.

If your old school figures (eg. The late 80s dwarf gyrocopters, a jabberwocky, a zombie dragon…) don’t exist in your chosen rulset (eg Kings of War)…well just agree some stats with your fellow gentleman (or lady) gamers and just bloody get on with.

Life is too frigging short to obsess over whether something is one thing or another. Just get a ruleset, agree what your chosen world/campaign setting is, agree some stats if you need to and then get some beloved lead and plastic on the table and have fun with friends.

Because the rest of it just doesn’t matter.

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What? Kings Of War version 2 measures regiments, units and hordes by base size rather than number of figures. Realising that my dwarf artillery is neutered to a degree, my new tactic is to throw numbers at the problem. The five of you reading this may recall that I bought a hundred of the EM4 plastic remakes of old Grenadier dwarfs a while back and without trimming off the bases, 21 of the little fellas fit snugly on a base made for 80. Feels like cheating but it may be my best quick-paint way to stem the tide of cavalry coming at me.

With speed in mind I also decided to drop the usual painting standard and I’m actually pretty pleased with the result considering that it involved just a black undercoat, metal dry brush, brown spears and boots and a grey drybrush for the beards. The whole lot were blue tacked to a big piece of cardboard and bulk painted while the kids watched a couple of Disney films. Result!

Goes completely against my instinct of each dwarf unit having some character but…times are hard and the elves and undead aremassing for another assault…getting a horde of spears on the field for about four quid and three hours painting? Time to love plastic and half arsed painting…

Jpeg

Jpeg

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I’ve really enjoyed reading a myriad of blog posts over the last few days that have reviewed the year, reflected on projects finished and counted up the paintjobs. Having thrown the majority of my energy (and eyestrain) into a new job since September, my painting output as slowed to a near hault. With a week off over Christmas and a 200+ dwarf backlog I had grand plans…so its time to do my own bit of reflection:

Units painted in the last week? Squat, and I don’t mean in a stunty way. I managed to undercoat a horde of spear-dwarfs and take a couple of pictures…and that’s it.

Real world stuff accomplished? Tons. Paid off two credit cards? Check. Set up an ISA? Uh huh. Got around to getting glasses that I knew that I needed for the last decade? Yup. Lost my temper with the kids several times a day? Full marks. Given the car its bi-annual wash? Oh yeah.

So, hobby 0, real life 10. Frustrated? Nah, not really. Having a massive lead n plastic pile to keep me busy in 2016 is pleasing. And having got round to getting glasses, I may actually paint the pile before my eyes give out…

So, with my theme in place ,here are the pics of the only painting that I managed in about three and a half months!

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When I was first introduced to wargaming, it was using the Operation Warboard rules and Airfix plastic model tanks – not the kits, but the ready-built soft plastic ones- do you remember those?

It was very much ‘Green vs Grey’ tank battles , so it tended to be a mix of Pattons, Shermans and Centurions vs Tigers and Panthers. What can I say? I was young…but equally it was a lot of fun.

Airfix 1/72 scale soft plastic Tiger Tank

A couple of years later I was playing ‘proper’ World War II games, using the same rules and lots of 1/72nd Airfix infantry and tanks…and it remained that way until I discovered Dungeons & Dragons and Games Workshop.

On Thursday, I had an e-mail from Chris Birch at Modiphius Entertainment, announcing the launch of a new Airfix wargaming project: Airfix Battles

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(Subtropical gardening in Bundaberg, Qld, Australia. An old boy's journey towards gardening using passive and organic techniques, free of chemicals, and with an emphasis on harvesting fresh, healthy garden produce.)